In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Gloria Anzaldua exposes her feelings about social and cultural difficulties that Mexican immigrants face when being raised in the United States. She establishes comparisons among English, Spanish and their variations and how cultural imperialism influence on people’s “preference” to speak one language rather than the other. She brings to debate important social problems such as sexism, cultural imperialism, racism, low self-esteem, reprimand, and identity construction. The author brilliantly starts the article with a metaphor in which she defines the acculturation process as something extremely violent and cruel. In addition, the article aims at showing both sides of the acculturation process: the Anglo side and the Hispanic side. On the Anglo side, there is the urgency of adaption. In other words, if an individual choose to immigrate to the United States, he should embrace the language and culture in order to be “accepted”; on the Hispanic side, there are the Mexican parents who want their children to succeed and live the American Dream, thus they’d better speak proper American English with minimum or no accent. It seems that all the author desires is to be able to freely speak Chicano Spanish and have their own language and identity respected. According to the article, some progress has being made. There are books published in Chicano Spanish, and political parties who defend Chicano’s rights. Nonetheless, there is still an interrogation mark with regards to their race, identity, language, culture, sense of belonging, freedom to express their thoughts in whatever English/Spanish variation they want and sexism due to the “macho” features of Latinos in general. In addition, the author expresses her feeling of outrage, exposing how Chicano Spanish is belittled by Latinos and Anglo people. To conclude the author points out that Chicanos are linguistically orphans and how it seriously affects their self-esteem.

Response:

The article “How to Tame a Wilde Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua is extremely valuable since it brings to discussion important social issues such as sexism, cultural imperialism, racism, low self-esteem, reprimand and identity formation. The article has a solid argument base which can be corroborated by scholars such as Foucault, Goffman, Zizek and Fanon. Although it was publish in 1987 as part of Anzaldua’s book “Borderland/ La Frontera”, she was a contemporary of the Chicano Movement in the 60s. Culturally, she was influenced by the social turmoil when she wrote the article. In other words, the richness of her writing goes beyond knowledge, it also comes from personal experience.

One of the article’s strengths is clearly stated by the author when she qualifies the acculturation process as violent. She uses the term “linguistic terrorism” and explains how the First Amendment is violated, when an individual has his form of expression attacked with intend of censure. Another interesting point is the view of languages as subjective and passive of changes that go beyond new grammatical rules. Those changes incorporate social and cultural factors. In addition, there is an intriguing questioning on whether identity construction is a social input and to what extent individuals have control upon their own identity formation. All these thoughts were developed by the author among social turmoil caused by the Chicano Movement and I strongly believe that it contributed to the general strength of the article. Historically speaking, the Mexican- American society in California and Texas had been going through over twenty years of segregation. Among the claimed civil rights was the right to quality education in which Mexican-Americans would receive equal college opportunities and not merely be pushed into vocational schools. Mexican-American children or Chicanos, would be ashamed of their origins and of speaking Spanish since they were physically and psychologically punished at school for speaking Spanish in the classroom. Cultural imperialism promoted a stereotyped and stigmatized Mexican population: passiveness and low intellectual aptitude resulted in thousands of students dropping out of school.

At this point, I strongly believe that the author exposed her feelings and experience supporting them with historical facts in a very effective way. In a country where the First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (Find Law); one should have the right to live according to their cultural backgrounds up to the point of not overstepping the bounds of the others. That said, I strongly disagree with the author, when she states, “[…] until I’m free to write bilingually and switch codes without having always to translate, while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I’d rather speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate” (Anzaldua, 1987, p.80). One have the right to freedom of expression and might protest for things he believes will benefit society; however, how can one demand the majority to accommodate the language needs of the minority, when the official spoken language in the country, in this case the United States is English? At this point in the article, I sense that the author’s outrage oversteps the limit of common sense and she basically desires to pay back all the segregation she has faced so far in her life. I’d like to provide an example out of the American context in order to illustrate better my thoughts. Brazil is a country that received many Asians and Europeans immigrates during and by the end of World War ll. The official language is Brazilian Portuguese, there are many Italian, Japanese and German communities. Those communities are small when compared to the rest of the Brazilian population. Do Brazilians learn Italian to talk to Italians or do Italians learn Portuguese because they are living in Brazil and need to be able to integrate themselves into the Brazilian society? Are they going to be less Italians because they learn Portuguese? I don’t think so. The point I’m trying to make is: there are many advantages of being multicultural and one should try to accommodate the others’ needs to the best of their abilities. To conclude, I strongly believe that the author has a valid point when it comes to cultural imperialism, sexism, identity construction, racism, low self-esteem and reprimand in a country that has liberty as one of its pillars.

Thesis:

Thesis # 1: Identity construction is indelibly linked to social inputs. It is a variable that depends on political, economic and bellicose hegemony.

Thesis # 2: Language and culture are inseparable; with language suffering variations as the culture varies or changes. Political, economic and geographical conditions will determine cultural characteristics that will result in language variation.

Thesis # 3: Individuals play different roles in society that are pretty much socially determined.

I find global warming an excellent subject to discuss. Maybe the author’s intention was exactly to be thought-provoking, inciting societal changes. Maybe that’s the reason you had so many questions when you finished reading it. It is common knowledge that global warming has affected us in different ways such as climate changing. There are several researches out there with data information that prove the existence of the effects of global warming. Honestly, I don’t believe that planting a garden would be the solution for global warming since the major damage caused to the planet is in industrial scale. Even when multinationals implement social responsibility programs, the pollution scale is exponentially disproportional if compared to the “environmental repair” scale. That said, I’d suggest you to focus on global warming and the ineffectiveness of social responsibility programs.
Just building a garden in your backyard is not going to make up for all the industrial pollution responsible for the carbon dioxide rates of 399 parts per million. You could also discuss about how multinationals take advantage of global warming to promote their trade mark via social responsibility programs.

I’d also suggest you to review grammar and punctuation.

I don’t quite understand your first and third thesis. The second one is pretty much already answered by other scholars.

My peer’s summary

Summary: Article: Michael Pollan, “Why Bother?”

In this article by Michael Pollan, “Why Bother?” we are asked to look into the question of global warming. The author is trying to implant the urgency of what we can do to solve the problem. Is the problem going to be fixed by people making their own choices to help or is it going to be a government push to fix the problem. (?) The article is also covering the point of even if us “Americans” make the changes needed will other places around the world follow the lead and do the same or will our improvements be over powered by other countries’ lack of improvement. We ourpointed out the things that he feels we can do to change, from using areair conditioners less, trying to drive less or trade in your gas guzzling Tahoe’s for more economical battery powered toaster hybrids. Although I feel there are plenty of choices to make, I feel the author picked maybe one of the smallest choices we can of planting your own garden. Planting a garden is great, I agree but, out of all the things we can do I don’t see that being a significant change. How much can planting a garden help? Michael Pollan brings up the “cheap-energy mind” and how everything translates to money, that it will take incentives to make people make the changes needed. We are pointed out threw out the article of “Why Bother” and if you do bother why going green is important. Change your carbon foot print in the world and make your change, stop spending your hard earned money on what other people provide for you and provide yourself with your own home grown garden.

Response:

When first reading this article, I was grasped by the importance of it. Michael Pollan did a great job of bringing the reader into what he feels is a huge challenge for the world to overcome. We are leadon to believe that if we don’t do anything ourselves we could be pushed or forced too. He goes back as far dated as when Al Gore was president, and his urgency in the situation. But just how bad are we? I don’t feel that there were enough statistics stating where we stand today. Although I do agree we need to make changes I also feel after reading the article and speaking about it to others and getting their opinions I feel that the opinions of others steered me away from my original feeling that I should run out and plant my own garden and purchase a hybrid vehicle stop eating meat and never turn on my air conditioner.It took me 20 minutes to read an article that made me feel I should do my part but then it took 5 minutes in a conversation to make me rethink it, after asking others there believes some have made me question is global warming really effecting are daily lives or is it a government conspiracy? We are given the option of planting our own garden and what an impact it will make, but I do not feel there was enough information there about what a garden can do, becausehonestly what can 3 rows of fruit or vegetables in my back yard do (?)and there should have put more in the article to make me feel that it will be worth my while,even though he did go on to tell us that planting a garden can lead to other choices like having your own compost pile but does not go on to provide the reader with what out of our own waste can we use. I do not expect a guide to growing your own garden and making your own compost but feel it left me with too many questions.I was not convinced that by growing my own garden to help global warming, but I was impressed with the fact that if global warming is such a problem and the vast amount of oil and gas we all feel is there went away we would eventually all fall into providing ourselves with our own food. I realize that his point was to grow your own garden but if he wants people to change the way they live their lives and change their carbon foot print he should have focused on some areas that might make a bigger impact. He could have also focused more on what kind of money we can save. He did focus on the incentives some might receive but I want more I want to know what I will gain. For most Americans who have fallen into debt what will this do for me? It is selfish to think about putting money over the condition of the world but in today’s world you almost have to. Even though I have started to change my initial opinion on global warming I have not changed my opinion that we still need to do something, and that’s where I feel the author failed to enforce that even if planting a garden is not what you want to do that there are plenty of options we can choose from. Elaborate on these other options convince me that I can make a change. I do feel this is a great article on global warming and the impact we humans have but feel it left me with too many questions and I will have a lot of research to do to make my own opinion on where I will spend my time helping the cause. I still feel that I am left with the title of the article “Why Bother”?

Thesis #1: How can I “bother” the climate change?

Thesis #2: Is global warming fact or fiction? Or is it a government conspiracy?

I strongly believe that stability is one of the most critical factors for the successful growth and development of children and adolescents. That said, one can think of parents’ emotional and financial stability; school environment stability, micro and macro social stability, etc. According to Huerta and Sandstrom (2013) instability has toxic effects on children’s emotional, physical and cognitive development. The authors emphasize that some change is normal and even anticipated, but, abrupt changes can seriously disturb children’s feeling of security. Consequently, that can affect how children and adolescents manage their own relationships as adults. Unfortunately, one can infer that the various types of instability generate a vicious cycle, in which unaware individuals will keep passing it on through generations. For instance, economic instability in early childhood can impact negatively on the child’s cognitive development. Another interesting example mentioned by Huerta and Sandstrom refers to family instability, parents who marry, remarry, separate, start or end a cohabitating union might result in child problem behaviors and poor academic outcomes. To conclude, I agree that the family unit is the main responsible for the well-being of its children, however, the government and non-profit organization also play an important role when it comes to offer specialized programs that support unstable families, especially those that come from poor income communities. The problems caused by instability and its variations could be mitigated through improvement of such social programs.